Medlin the Writer

Friday, 19 January 2018

‘Big
Breadwinner Hog’ was a controversial TV series broadcast in 1969 and a part of the
1960s revolution in morality which displaced Christian morals with relativism.
It featured a violent gangster protagonist as ‘anti-hero’. In such series, the
police gradually came to be portrayed as ill-motived, incompetent and often
corrupt. Hence, the values of traditional police/crime series, such as
‘Gideon’s Way,’ which reflected those of the wider society, were completely
upturned.

The career villain, Mark Duggan, was shot by
police in August 2011 in possession of a handgun. The left-wing media and elite
attempted to exonerate him as a lovable rascal and to defame the police.

The Kray Twins, still with a faded notoriety
to this day, were arrested in May 1968, found guilty of murder and jailed for
life.

The Great Train Robbery, similarly feted by
leftish commentators as more an act of social rebellion than a violent crime,
occurred in August 1963.

And now into this swamp of moral relativism
comes mass, and rapidly-growing, Islam, perhaps to impose a further moral
revolution?

--------------

“For
nothing it availeth us to have been born, save that we were born to be
redeemed.” (Exsultet, Holy Saturday
liturgy).

Gruff
though genial, Gideon of the Yard,

Trimly
suited, raps orders from his desk;Villains
are villains, to be dealt with hard

That
decent folk might walk the streets

In
peace and earn their rusk:All
share a code, stern as a knife,That’s
rule born, disdaining all thugs and cheats,Expressed
in Gideon’s blameless family life.

And
then ‘Hog’ Hogarth sneered onto the scene,

Brute-eyed,
his morals acid in the face;

With
60s chic and long-nosed guns, a sheen

Of
glamour disbowelled public sense –Rogues
became heroes, base

The
police; citizens gave laud

To
the flagrant flash of dishonest penceAnd
Hogarth’s violence of bed and bawd.

Fifty
years on, the jakes are midden-full:

A
villain, Duggan, is shot fleeing arrestAnd
officers are pilloried as cruelAssassins;
puce, the thought-elite

Declare
the gangster blessed;Self-dupes
of moral lazy-eye,They
trample common good with two left feetLike
beasts bullying others in a sty.

All’s
rotted by that still-revolving storm

Which
flung the Sixties beam-end into wreck,

Which
smashed to shards its birth-taught Christian norm,Replaced
it with autonomyAnd
broke decorum’s neck.Now
public institutions areA
butt, and scoundrels wielding rights make freeTo
cosh the social realm and spit at law.

Recall
the Kray Twins, porcine, Sixties throbs,

Killers
who shone in swell society;The
Great Train gang, inauspicious types though thugs,Who
cracked a driver’s skull for gain;

Jailed,
yes, though privily

Respected
by a rule-shy age;But
who guards private goods and public faneIf
civil force may not fling down its gage?

Choked,
miners fight to save a fire-damp pit;

Might
Hogarth, shamed, stiffen and lend his arm?

Such
selfless acts, like pearl around the grit,

At
depth are God-induced, but now

The
Cross is a dead psalmWhat
might remould morality?Looms
Islam chanting suras from its dhow –Hog,
Gideon, both, will surely bend the knee.

Wednesday, 3 January 2018

A poem of disabused experience. By way of comparison, here are links to a couple of early
poems of a more hopeful persuasion: ‘My Living’, written in simple syllabics,
dates from c. 1973-6 and was posted on 3 September '13; it can be seen here; and ‘Though the Weekday Go’, again in syllabics with a count of 9 and 8,
written in 1976 and posted on 5 July '13; it can be seen here.

--------------

Decades
of years I’ve spent

Raging at loss,

Angered
by what love meant,Its
heart-confusing gloss;No
lover would remainLong
enough to explain.

Tuesday, 19 December 2017

If you want to know what the life of a Cornish deep-sea fisherman is really like you only have to look at the 1993 BBC TV series 'The Skipper,' (it's on Youtube). Roger Nowell, the eponymous skipper, was one of Newlyn's characters and epitomised the hard, hand-to-mouth existence of many Cornish fishermen. And the dangers of the western sea are all too evident. In the series, Roger was rarely seen without a roll-up in hand or mouth; unfortunately, the consequence was an early death at 66.

--------------

i.m. 1944 – 2010

Rough,
untutored, though canny as a gull,

Skilled
at all net or engine work to keep

The
boat steady although its plunging hullRisks
swamping in the freezing western deep;

Blunt,
unsettled, pub-haunting when on shore,

At
sea philosopher of the tall waves,Yarning
under the moon in the wind’s roar,Cursing
as trawls are cast and the spume raves;

Monday, 27 November 2017

"Eheu" is taken from Horace's famous lines "Eheu, fugaces, Postume,Postume,/labuntur anni..." (Alas, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting years slip by) [Odes Bk II, XIV]. Some critics say "eheu" is pronounced as three syllables, some as two, and some with a sort of dying fall on the second syllable making two and a half. For my purposes it's two, although the other pronunciations work well.--------------Eheu,
such heartache, all that was is dead,

Lost
to the past like wreckage on the tide;Chastened,
the wise man lives within his head.

Tremble
of heartstrings, twined by board and bed,

Untuned
to din when love and hate collide;

Alas,
such heartache, all that was is dead.

A
mate and spratling to be clothed and
fed,

But
crippling horror when that child’s eyes chide;Chastened,
a wise man lives within his head.

Smash
up of home when each from each has fled

Implacable
as seagulls on the glide;

Eheu,
such heartache, all that was is dead.

Years
upon years into the night have bled

And
each is changed and to the truth has lied;Chastened,
the wise man lives within his head.

Saturday, 23 September 2017

Samuel
Johnson was born on 18 Sept 1709 and it is well worthwhile remembering his
anniversary. In June 1981 I wrote a poem, ‘On the Death-Mask of Samuel
Johnson’. I posted it on my blogsite on 6 September 2012. There is a link here. I wrote the
poem after being hugely impressed by Johnson’s poems and reading the recently-published
mighty biography of Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate. Although I also remember
giving up on ‘Rasselas’ after the first few chapters. My poem refers to a
number of well-known biographical details of Johnson’s life. Below are the
first five stanzas of the eight
stanza poem. Those who read to the end will notice the imperfect rhyme in the
last line. I was less sensitive to such things in those days; when I looked at
the poem again in 2012 prior to posting I could not find an alternative which
said what I wanted to say, hence the rhyme remains.

About Me

Now 68, I was greatly interested in poetry - reading, writing it, etc - until in the mid-1980s commitments and earning a living took precedence. I continued to write prose. I have now revisited my poetry and posted all I wish to save as an old man's folly. I have also begun writing poetry again and am gradually posting it. I make no claims as to its value.